


'til the strings break

by mildlydiscouraging



Series: phan week 2015 [6]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Classical Music, Breaking Up & Making Up, M/M, No Dialogue, Phan Week 2015, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 17:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5256809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It just hurts, alright? So Dan carries on with life as best he can, practices 'til his fingers ache and fills his time with thirty-second notes and staccatos instead of fingertips and laughter, and it works. Until it doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'til the strings break

**Author's Note:**

> [phan week](http://phanweek.tumblr.com) is slowly coming to an end and i'm sad, but here's day six (breaking up and making up) and they're classical musicians this time bc i wrote this at honor band in an hour last month.
> 
> title kinda from "[everything else](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7LHT0t2Uro)" from next to normal, but not quite, but yes from that

They met at a museum. When he puts it that way, Dan finds it sounds much more romantic, like a movie or something. In reality, they did meet at a museum, true, but only because Phil had a friend who had a friend who knew the artist and Dan was playing atmospheric piano in the corner to pay whatever bills he had that month. It wasn't some kind of "you were standing in front of the same painting as me and we have a shared interpretation of it that reveals some hidden part of each of us" that brought them together as it was "you're listening to me rant about the monotony of playing the same two pieces over and over on my break and you happen to relate because you play the cello at stuff like this usually".

Phil mentions a violin from the orchestra he plays with and Dan recognizes the name from a recital three years ago and eventually they run into other shared interests like, well, everything, and Dan didn't end up getting paid because he stopped playing but that was okay because he was pretty sure he was on a date now anyway.

Two and a half months later and Dan couldn't tell you why but they were broken up. It might have something to do with Dan's nocturnal practicing habits or the fact that Phil was always off playing with some orchestra or another and never really home, but something in the middle stopped working and now there was one less dirty mug to wash in the mornings.

There were some things he didn't miss, like the way Phil always managed to get toothpaste all around the bathroom sink, or how his sheet music always ended up mixed in with his, but there were some things Dan couldn't stand to look at anymore. The nightstand where Phil always put his glasses and knocked them off trying to turn off his alarm every morning. The cushion on the far side of the sofa that was still squished into the shape of Phil leaning back on it. The broken ring on the shower curtain and the off center picture frame in the hall and the toothbrush that still stood by the sink but has been dry for a week.

Already a week, and only eleven before, and god knows how many before that (one thousand two hundred and fifty-two, Dan checked), and it still hurt. Dan knows it’s partially his fault for keeping all that stuff around; the socks he left under the bed, the toothbrush, the extra mugs and the cereal Dan doesn't even like.

It just hurts, alright? So Dan carries on with life as best he can, practices 'til his fingers ache and fills his time with thirty-second notes and staccatos instead of fingertips and laughter, and it works. Until it doesn't.

Until what's supposed to be distracting him takes him to the thing he needs to be distracted from and the conductor puts the grand piano down stage left instead of right and Dan has to spend three hours a day staring at the back of  _his_ head and willing his fingers to play the right notes. Dan used to joke that he was more beautiful than a Vivaldi concerto and now they're in the same room he knows it's really true, and that he hurts more than one too.

There's less than a week left of rehearsals and he doesn't know whether he's counting down in anticipation or dread until there's a water break on Thursday and he finally, finally turns around.

God, Dan can't help but tear up when he does, everything suddenly too much until the stage lights the conductor force-blinded everyone with, and he almost runs away and Phil almost drops his cello in an aborted attempt to run after him. Dan gets as far at the empty left wing of the stage before he realizes they're a lot of almost and it's time for a definite.

Phil seems to be on the same page and they talk and talk and talk, standing closer than they need to when someone walks past back to their instruments, and it’s cool and dark away from the industrial strength stage lights, and maybe that was their problem all along. Too much light makes the baby go blind, and all that.

So in between breaths Dan steps back into the heavy weight of the curtains and Phil follows, of course he does, and where it's dark and quiet it's so easy to find the loose pieces and put them back in place, seeing with hands where eyes can't and sealing all the cracks in between.

The conductor calls time and they have to step back out in the light but nothing feels translucent like it did before and everything is solid in the space between their fingers. Those fingers have to pull apart for string and bows and keys and more strings, but it’s okay, because they've got their own strings to fall back on.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! this was kinda weird, in retrospect, but not as much as day seven's gonna be. oh yes, 2012, poetry, hurt and sadness.
> 
> (oh also "too much light makes the baby go blind" is actually the name of a show done by the neo-futurists, an acting group, [here's](http://neofuturists.org/toomuchlight/) their website in case u were wondering)
> 
> tumblr @[dweebhowell](http://dweebhowell.tumblr.com)


End file.
